This invention relates generally to the field of interactive computer systems, and more particularly to a system and method for use in a hospitality facility enabling communication and an individualized content experience.
Most hospitality facilities, such as hotels, motels, amusement parks, theme parks, casinos, and resorts, face many common problems associated with not being able to locate or communicate with their patrons, such as guests. These problems may result in lost revenues for the hospitality facilities and in an inconvenience for patrons.
One problem is that a patron who wants to communicate with another person, such as a spouse or a friend, may not be able to do so easily. For example, in a casino, a husband and a wife may play a different game at two different player terminals located at the opposite ends of the casino. If, for example, the husband wants to ask his wife to meet him in the lobby in five minutes, the only way to do this may be to physically search for and locate his wife. This not only inconveniences the patrons, but is bad for business. Casinos want to keep patrons at the player terminals as long as possible to maximize revenues and patron gaming time.
Hospitality facilities also face the problem of finding lost patrons. For example, in an amusement park, if a child is lost, the parent or a hospitality facility employee may have to physically search for the child, which may be time consuming, difficult, and cause lost revenues. In addition, the hospitality facility may also want to communicate with patrons to inform them about the status of an event, or offer a promotion. For example, in a casino, a patron typically plays both offline games, such as keno, and online games, such as player terminals. To maximize gaming time and entertainment value, a patron may buy a keno ticket and then, go play at a player terminal. After a few minutes, however, the patron may have to interrupt play at the player terminal to obtain the results of the keno game. The patron may have to walk to the keno game area to obtain these results. This frustrates the casinos desire to keep patrons at the player terminals as long as possible and inconveniences the patrons.
In addition, a hospitality facility would like to provide a comfortable atmosphere to encourage a guest to continue to play at a game terminal or remain within the hospitality facility. Providing a guest with access to content (e.g., audio or video broadcasts) may provide additional entertainment for some players, while creating a welcome distraction for others. However, delivery of such content has typically been limited to centralized systems where one or several outputs are available to all guests within a particular area. Such an arrangement is unable to cater to the desires of each of the many guests within a hospitality facility and may actually have the effect of causing some players to leave an area or game terminal due to a dislike of the currently available content. Allowing guests access to individually selected content and conversation features has the benefit of enhancing a player experience and therefore encouraging the player to remain at a game terminal or within the hospitality facility.